My friend long
back narrated this story of a young man who sold Kashmiri shawls in Calcutta,
where he one day fell ill. Days of medication and rest had only helped him
recover partially. One day they found him missing from his room during the day
and by evening when he came back, his condition had improved tremendously.
Inquiring about this change, they found that he had spent the day along a
stinking water stretch of the city, which bore almost an unbearable stench.
Since back home this young man lived close to a stinking water body in
Srinagar, most of which has been encroached and the remaining being killed by
emptying drains and filth, the stench of that stinking Calcutta corner suddenly
had made him feel home. I don’t know the reality behind this story, but this
narration surely reflects the predicament of Kashmir today, with people assuming
such indifference to heinous criminality that such occurrences are assumed to
be the norm now.Hence if it does not
stink, it does not seem normal for some.

The recent
molestation case against a ruling politician and the covert ways and means
adopted by the state apparatus in saving him is just a continuity of the set rule
of ‘indispensable Kashmiris’ and ‘anything in the name of Indian Nationalism’. As
in numerous other cases, not only was the criminality of this politician
brazen, the follow-up by the India supported state apparatus in Kashmir was
also demonic. An accused VVIP who is covered by layers of police security and
whose every move is otherwise monitored by an overwhelming security grid
suddenly remains ‘untraceable’ for arrest. And this ghostly ‘untraceable’ act
only ends when it has been ensured that a bail has been procured. A security
apparatus that is understood to have knowledge of every whisper, every text,
every personal event in Kashmir, that has every door and every window across
Kashmir under its scanners, suddenly can’t trace a ‘secured politician’. With
this ‘untraceable until bail’ they were not testing the IQ level of Kashmiris but
only continuing to identify with a reputation ; a reputation build by incidents
like officers accused of ‘rape in
custody’ and ‘custodial death’ not only promotedbut also awarded gallantry awards, by police known to have killed
youngsters in cold blood in Kashmir (remember 2010), by using PSA against hundreds
of juveniles and lodging them in adult jails, by making ‘militants out of young
men’. This
security grid, far from being identified for the people, has been recognized
against the commoners in Kashmir, an iron fist that the oppressive state
survives on. Hence the molestation accused politician after emerging from
‘hiding’, taking an easy flight to Srinagar, being welcomed at the state
circuit house over breakfast and lunch at leisure and then driving down to the
police station to ‘record a statement’, where he was reportedly not only accorded
political protocol but also offered ‘kehwa’, did not surprise many. Instead of
treating the politician as an accused, he was being treated as a political VVIP,
and in such a scenario the fate of this case was already evident. Tejpal in
India and this ‘kehwa politician’ in Kashmir, same crime yet different treatment
must be part of the special status of ‘atoot angg’.

Indian media
known to indulge in ‘exoneration’ or ‘silence’ on crimes committed by state
arms against Kashmiris again chipped in by not only disclosing the name of victim
but also hinting at her family relations to a separatist. Would that mean crimes
against kin of separatists are justified, and since majority of people in
Kashmir have been calling for a resolution of Kashmir hence labeled separatists
by India, such crimes are sought to be justified against this majority?

The
politically powerful in Kashmir dare such heinous crimes not only because they
have been afforded impunity by the Indian state here, but also because people
tend to have hardened into an indifferent breed. Such criminals survive because
the society allows them to breed on our insensitivity and unconcern, because
these powerful criminals are accepted in our social folds with open arms. Many
years ago a senior state officer (now retired) narrated to me the shameful
escapades of a powerful politician he had witnessed in Gulmarg and the moral
disdain he had for that politician. Some years later I saw this officer
boasting of his links with the same politician and using them for some prize
postings. His morality talk had sold for graft greed peanuts. Also have
witnessed a police officer, who was accused of many custodial killings and unimaginable
oppression, being accorded more than a welcome in many social gatherings. Were
the hosts frightened of his repressive power or indifferent towards the blood
on his hands?

This is not the
first case where the powerful accused had been accorded such treatment and
escape route. The infamous sex scandal (of 2006) where the mighty and powerful
were involved and then let free, provides a glimpse of how justice is
manipulated in the most heinous of crimes when it comes to Kashmir. And in all
such cases the accused have sought refuge in ‘Indian nationalism’, reinforcing how
New Delhi’s representatives in Kashmir enjoy impunity for rape, molestation and
murders as long as these crimes are committed against ‘rebellious Kashmiris’.
Such accused politicians displaying ‘we have been accused because we are Indian
nationalists in Kashmir’ are similar to the Indian army claims in
KunanPoshpora, Pathribal and Machil and countless other crimes. While the
latter kills for bounty and medals under an anti insurgency (aimed at
commoners) impunity, the former molests rapes and steals under the cover of ‘political
nationalism’. What greater irony than the same accused ruling class being
thrust upon us time and again, to rule, commit, exonerate, and again rule,
commit, exonerate in a loop. The sex scandal accused of 2006 are the rulers of
today, the killers of yesteryears and the ‘gallantry officers’ of today ; both
complementing each other in this stinking oppressive system. In the last
election a woman voter when asked why she voted for a sex accused minister,
replied “but he did not molest my
daughter. Why should I not vote for him!” Such people are the ‘ganez nass’
of our society, the ‘till it does not burn me, the fire does not exist’ types.
Why do some people need tragedies to touch their own kin to make them feel the
pain? When pain and anger is not felt collectively, destruction by divisions
and fragments is bound to happen. What if the molested had been that woman’s
daughter and then the society had expressed the same indifference? What if the victim
had been the kin of those policemen who let the molester politician hide or the
sex scandal accused get away? What if the society then assumed the same
indifference and the system played the same tyrant? What is indifferent to you
today can be indifferent on you tomorrow.

‘Yatha Raja Thatha Praja’(as the ruler so the ruled) for Kashmiris has become ‘Yatha Praja Thatha Raja’ (as the ruled so the ruler).

For how long
will the stink around us, governing us, fooling us, ruling us, be treated as
normal?